Thursday , December 10, 2009
LIZ & LJ ON: The Beastie Boys Through the Ages
Not counting the Beatles and the Beach Boys, the Beastie Boys are the best band on Capitol Records whose name begins with B-E-A. They are also one of the most unique bands ever to have existed, somehow carving for themselves this strange musical niche of rhythmically whining about funk music, television programs from the 1970s, New York City landmarks, and their own names. As far as noted dude-and-music pundits Elizabeth Barker and Laura Jane Faulds of nogoodforme.com are concerned, the cultural climate of Two Thousand "The Shittiest Year Yet!" And Nine is nowhere near Beastie-centric enough; today, we are utilizing the "depth of perception in [our] text, y'all" to rectify this massive generational oversight. Get it together and see what's happenin', Kids Today!
EXHIBIT A: TEENAGE BEASTIES AT PUNK ROCK SHOW, 1983
LIZ: When I bought Some Old Bullshit 15 years ago, I assumed that hardcore-era Beastie Boys were these snarling, bad-ass punks all into breaking bottles over their heads and shit. But apparently they were just a bunch of skinny kids not even trying to come off punk, which is awesome. Mike looks like every boy I knew at my nerdy elementary-school summer camp, where we took classes on archaeology and Greek mythology and "fiber arts" instead of doing normal-kid summer-camp things. That green windbreaker just tickles me! And it's so neat to see Kate Schellenbach from Luscious Jackson on drums. I'm charmed by Adam Yauch's intensity and have nothing to say about Adam Horovitz.
LAURA JANE: If I could describe Mike D's performance of "Where's the White Shadow?" (or whatever) in two words, they would be "lacking charisma." Ad-Rock, it seems, is one of those people who will always look exactly the same. It doesn't matter if he's two years old or eighty years old, he will be a small, wiry black labrador puppy type of dude, with milk chocolate eyes and a lopsided smile. Baby MCA reminds me of Charlie Brown. Maybe Linus.
LIZ: Baby MCA reminds me of Schroeder!
EXHIBIT B: MCA, MIKE D, AN AD-ROCK LOOKALIKE, AND ANOTHER DUDE LOUNGIN', 1986
LAURA JANE: For the longest time, I thought the dude on the left was Ad-Rock. I had a whole hilarious paragraph written up in my head about how frat-core Ad-Rock looks in this photo, and what a beautiful world it would be it would be if every frat boy as frat boy-y as Ad-Rock in this photo grew up to become a scrappy, scratchy feminist as did Ad-Rock, but, it's not Ad-Rock. It's a stranger. That being said, I really "feel" MCA in this photo. He's a man, and nothing but. Calling MCA a dude is like calling Cary Grant a dude; it's almost disrespectful. The hottest thing about MCA is that he's, like, beyond being a dude. As for Mike Diamond, well, um, shit. Mike D prior to 1992 is like the dude at the bar who is trying with all his might to get you to tongue-kiss him before the night is through, but there is NO CHANCE. I find it interesting how chubby his face was for so long. And I question whether or not Mike D really loved Motorhead that much, or was he just being before-his-time ironic? I am also confused by the actuality of Mike D's hair texture. In 1998, did he straighten it with a straightening iron?
LIZ: I'm into this photo because it allows me to imagine an alternate reality in which the mid- to late-80s Beastie Boys posed as heshers instead of frat boys. In alotta ways heshers are my favorite breed of boy, and even though Mike and Adam aren't in full-on hesher mode here, it's still enough to melt my butter/float my boat/stack my sandwich/tick my tock, etc. My mind's also real bottled by the "pre-ironic or no?" query re Mike's Motorhead t-shirt. Mike D, if you're reading this, which you probably are, please share with us: Do/did you really love Motorhead that much? Comment "yes" or "no." Thanks. I love you so much. And, hey, I just re-looked at this photo and realized Adam's really not hesher at all, but whatevs: His hair looks feathered, even though it's not. That is so beautiful to me.
P.S. I thought that was Ad-Rock too!
LAURA JANE: I have never heard the term "hesher" before in my life! I suppose it's before my time; by 1996, the year I became intellectually astute enough to define the fashion concepts of others through slang-y lump terms, all the heshers had grown up to be yuppie dentists, I guess. But yes, I like heshers too. "Hesher Chic" is something definitely worth exploring, in my opinion. Sorry to digress, but I just want to double-check with you: Sebastian Bach's a hesher, right?
LIZ: No, Sebastian Bach is way too glam to be a hesher. Garth Algar is a hesher.
EXHIBIT C: "HEY LADIES" MUSIC VIDEO, 1988
LAURA JANE: Ad-Rock is by far and away my favorite Beastie Boy. I relate to him like crazy, in the same way I relate to Keith Moon. To say I feel like they could be my brothers is to sell them both short, and by a long shot. They are my TWINS or nothing, unless all three of us were triplets, which would be THE FUNNEST LIFE EVER. Oh, the mischief we three scamps would get up to!
"Hey Ladies" features one of my fave B-Boys "rhymes" ever- "She's talking to The Kid/I'm telling her every lie that you know that I never did." I relate to being "The Kid." I also relate to the gift of the gab being the gift that I have, because it is- and how!
Mike D's face is beginning to slim down in this one. I love when they do the triple high-five at 1:22. If the nogoodforme troika were the Beastie Boys, I'd be Horovitz, of course-o-vitz ("Laur-Rock"), Kat Asharya would be MCA ("MCK"), and Liz Barker would be Mike D ("Liz B") Money Emily Richmond would be Money Mark Nishita.
LIZ: The "Hey Ladies" vid is both Mike-D-centric and L.A.-centric, which rules for me because (a) Mike D is my fave Beastie Boy and (b) L.A. is my fave thing in general. I really like the part when Ad-Rock goes "I'm telling her every lie that you know that I never did" too, but mostly because I think it's cool how he's eating while he says it. I also really like the idea of dudes constantly blow-drying their hair.
LAURA JANE: If I like the dude, I like it when the dude is doing anything. That's sort of the core principle of why I love the Beasties so dearly, fondly and eternally- it's three cute dudes! What could they possibly mess up?
EXHIBIT D: "SO WHAT'CHA WANT" MUSIC VIDEO, 1992
LIZ: Probably the thing I miss most about high school is living in a world where everyone was obsessed with the Beastie Boys. Our love was so deep, in fact, the principal made the prom DJ shut off "So What'cha Want" halfway through cuz everyone was thrashing all around and going totally b-a-n-a-n-a-s. So yeah, this vid marks the high-school moment when the Beasties became Very Very Important to me; I remember spending many afternoons after school with Check Your Head blasting on my walkman while I jumped around the basement, pretending my life was all shot with heat-sensitive cameras and I looked halfway as cool as MCA in his plaid-flannel and wool hat. Nowadays I'd probably rather date someone who looks like MCA in the "So What'cha Want" video, but I still want my life to be all shot in heat-sensitive cameras. Also, this my favorite video dancing ever. Also, "motherfucker" is bleeped out really geniusly. Also, I really want to Twitter "Well, I think I'm losing my mind this time, this time I'm losing my mind, that's right, said I think I'm losing my mind this time, this time I'm losing my mind," but it's 19 characters too long. What bullshit.
LAURA JANE: MCA wins the "So What'cha Want" hotness prize, but Mike D wins the "So What'cha Want" "best t-shirt" prize. I never lived in a world where everybody loved the Beastie Boys. The closest I ever came to living in a world where everybody loved the Beastie Boys happened over the space of six months in 2002, when the subject of every e-mail Liz Barker and I sent to one another had to be a Beastie Boys lyric. My favorite was when Liz pulled out "Like the cherry to the apple to the peach to the plum"- basically, the Beastie Boys invented Joanna Newsom. Also, Liz, remember when all our e-mail subject lines were popular song lyrics with Steve Martin's name subbed in?
EXHIBIT E: "GRATITUDE" MUSIC VIDEO, 1992
LIZ: Ad-Rock is so my least favorite Beastie Boy; I relate to him zero, mostly because he comes off really aggressively extroverted, which is kinda the opposite of me. All the girls always thought he was the cutest and I never ever got it, but the "Gratitude" video made it all click. He looks goddamn great, the best of the bunch - and that's no small feat, considering all three Beasties are really dynamite-looking here (MCA in particular gets a thousand thumbs up for hotly chewing gum as he's slappin' da bass, mon). It should also be noted that I'd rank "Gratitude" number-one on my list of Beastie Boys Songs That Don't Sound Like What the Beastie Boys Usually Sound Like. At the opposite end of the list we have "Sabrosa" and anything else "jazzy." Yuck.
LAURA JANE: Elizabeth Barker and I have exact opposite "Gratitude" opinions.
However, Ad-Rock is gross in this video. They all are, but especially Ad-Rock. Why the fuzzy burgundy backwards Kangol cap? It's terrible! Liz, was that kind of thing legitimately cool in 1992? I wouldn't know, I was too busy being seven. Also, I don't enjoy listening to "Gratitude" at all, though I'm really into the concept of being gracious right now. My favourite Beastie Boys songs that don't sound like normal Beastie Boys songs are "Song for the Man" and "Instant Death," which makes me cry.
LIZ: I'm in such disbelief over every word Laura Jane Faulds just wrote, I feel like she must be playing some kind of belated April Fools joke on me. But probably she's not. Weird!
I guess one thing I kind of agree with is that "Song for the Man" is a hot jam. The rest just mystifies.
LAURA JANE: You never answered my question about the fuzzy burgundy backwards Kangol cap. Are you purposely ignoring me?
LIZ: [ignores Laura Jane]
EXHIBIT F: "NETTY'S GIRL" MUSIC VIDEO, 1992
LIZ: My favorite thing about the "Netty's Girl" video is that, had Mike pedaled his bike precisely one-third of a mile further down Glendale Blvd, he would've ended up at the first apartment I lived at in L.A. My second favorite thing is that Mike's wearing a superfly Newport cigarettes shirt, plus a really good hat. My third favorite thing is that I too have ridden the Echo Park Lake paddleboats, so it's kind of like I'm in the video. (A tip: Don't attempt the paddleboats unless you've slept at least five hours and are very un-hungover; otherwise you'll probably end up just floating around the whole time, which is boring.) My fourth favorite thing is how Mike's lip-synching is mega-lazy, lazier even than paddleboating on zero sleep and an epic night of beer and Jager. My fifth favorite thing is the look on the other dude's face at 2:13. My sixth favorite thing is the quick shot of Ad-Rock snuggling with Ione Skye, who is named after my iPod. Oh, and I also like that the video is directed by Mike's wife Tamra Davis, who is awesome but not named after my iPod. R.I.P. Netty's!
LAURA JANE: Blah, blah, blah. Mike D is on a boat. I don't get it.
EXHIBIT G: "ROOT DOWN (REMIX)" VIDEO FROM THE TIBETAN FREEDOM CONCERT, 1997
LAURA JANE: A few paragraphs ago, I rhetorically asked the Universe how the Beastie Boys could ever go wrong. And then I remembered: they could be Mike D at the 1997 Tibetan Freedom Concert. If Mike D were anybody else in the world besides Mike D (or one of the other Beastie Boys, or one of the Beatles), his stupid little mini-braids would be an unforgivable crime of fashion. They are the Mike D equivalent of Leighton Meester's stupid Met Gala outfit. When I was in my sophomore year of college, I once printed out a picture of Mike D's stupid little mini-braids and propped it up on my roommate's pillow with an accompanying note reading "LOOK AT MY STUPID MINI-BRAIDS." True story, Ladies & Germs. I wonder if Mike D busted out the stupid mini-braids in an effort to look as cool as the dreadlocked dude who appears at 0:55 seconds into this video. For three days in 1999, homeboy was seriously my dream dude.
PS: I think I'm going to start a new column on nogoodforme.com called "If Mike D were Leighton Meester." The possibilities are endless!
LIZ: We are in agreeance on this one. If Mike D always had hair like that, I'd never like him. Contrarywise, if Ad-Rock always had hair like that, I'd never not be in love with him.
EXHIBIT H: SPIN MAGAZINE COVERS, 1998
LAURA JANE: These pictures are significant to me because, once upon a time, I was a weird thirteen-year-old who so very obsessed with the Beastie Boys that I kept up a Beastie Boys Binder with every Beastie Boys article and photograph I came across filed chronologically into plastic sleeves, as if the Beastie Boys were accounting. The day I rode my bicycle to Chapters and bought all three Beastie Boys SPIN issues certainly surpassed Christmas that year. I also like these pictures because I think all three o' my bros look exceedingly facially beautiful- MCA has an angelic quality to him here, and Mike D's eyes are as blue as the Great Barrier Reef. I spent my entire life searching for an Animal Liberation/Human Liberation t-shirt so I could be cool as Adam Horovitz in this photograph; a year ago, I finally achieved my goal, and now I even have a tote bag of it too! By the by, if you Google-search "ad-rock human liberation," a thing I wrote is the first article that comes up! Greatest accomplishment yet, Laura Jane!
LIZ: The most important thing about the shitty late '90s is it's kinda the last moment when Mike, Adam & Adam were 100% percent the Beastie Boys as we know and love them. To the 5 Boroughs was such a dud, we're just gonna pretend it never happened, and I have no idea what the Beastie Boys are doing now besides making guest appearances on 30 Rock. But the Hello Nasty days were good days indeed - I saw that tour and just before they came onstage Mix Master Mike spun the opening bit of "Tom Sawyer" by Rush and it was sooo cool!
BTW, that Spin article's online here - it's an oral history (with Madonna and Henry Rollins and Molly Ringwald and Dr. Dre and other exciting people) and a damn good read. I remember reading it and getting sad about how, in the Licensed to Ill era, there was talk of kicking Mike out cuz he wasn't cool enough, and how Adam and Adam used to gang up on Mike and dump dirt on him while he was sleeping and stuff. I hope Kat and LJ don't do that to me when we go on tour!
EXHIBIT I: "LATE NIGHT WITH JIMMY FALLON" PERFORMANCE OF "SO WHAT'CHA WANT", 2009
LAURA JANE: After thirty years of finding Mike D. straight-up "not hot," suddenly, at age forty trillion, he's like, the flyest dude I've ever seen. His outfit is a gift. Dear every dude in the world: if you want chicks who care about clothes to like you, just wear some variation of this Mike D. look every day for the rest of your life, and before you know it, all the Kat, Liz and Laura Janes of the world will be writing you gushy love-notes tucked into cardstock envelopes sprayed with their perfume. I am really proud of all the two-weeks-ago-era Beastie Boys' shoe choices. I am also proud of Ad-Rock for going gray gracefully, or "gray-cefully"; sadly (or 'tragically,' even), the same cannot be said of Adam Yauch. Adam Yauch in 2009 is so schlumpy-dump and grandfatherly, he makes my actual grandfather, who is eighty, seem spry. I realize dude's a Buddhist and, like, above it, but seriously, MCA? Get with the program (the program being "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon")! Not that I've ever read Buddhist scriptures or anything, but I highly doubt Siddhartha Gautama ever said shit about how you should wear a sack on national television. In my opinion, it's time for MCA to invest in a cool caftan. Or a Mike D. cardigan, at very least.
LIZ: I don't care if Ad-Rock's going gray gracefully; I mostly just think he looks boring. MCA doesn't seem like MCA anymore to me, at all. I miss MCA. Where is MCA?
I'm trying to imagine myself being into a dude wearing some variation of this Mike D. look, and the only way it works is if the dude's actually Mike D. I'll probably never love a non-Mike-D man in a cardigan, but you know: Life is full of surprises. Up until this vid I was kinda depressed about how very un-boyish Mike D's looking lately, but now that all seems silly. He looks great and seems like he's having the most fun of anyone, so bully for him. I'm so happy for Michael Diamond and his huge, huge hair. Way to win at life, Mike.
LAURA JANE: It all came full circle for Mike D! He's come a long way since being the loser who had dirt thrown on him.
By the way, Liz B, I'd obviously never throw dirt at you (though I can't speak for MCK). But, if you continue to evade answering my fuzzy burgundy Kangol cap Q, I very well may dress in black, sneak up around the back, begin my attack, and before you know it-
THE EGGS WILL CRACK ON LIZ BARKER'S BACK.
Tags: Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz, Adam "MCA" Yauch, Beastie Boys, burgundy fuzzy backwards Kangol caps, heshers, if Mike D were Leighton Meester, Ione Skye the iPod, Keith Moon, L.A. rules, Madonna, Mike D, paddleboating, Peanuts, throwing eggs at Elizabeth Barker, Wayne's World
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4 Comments!!
Say something so insightful and witty, it will blow us away. (No pressure.)
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no, don't crack the eggs on my scoliotic back! i'm going to continue to ignore you, though, for now at least.
this is a really awesome post, by the way. good job, liz and lj.
p.s. i actually really dig 2009. best year since 2003, by leaps and bounds.
p.p.s. yes, steve martin. 'steve martin only knows' (yrs). 'have you seen steve martin, baby, standing in the shadow?' (mine). we should do a liz and lj post on steve martin, and it can be like 'steve martin has always looked the same for 40 years. the end.'
By Liz
on June 8, 2009 5:58 PM
I forgot about your scoliosis when I wrote that. Now I just feel like a jerk.
By Laura
on June 9, 2009 12:27 AM
don't feel bad! i was actually thinking how awesome it would be if you'd written: THE EGGS WILL CRACK ON LIZ BARKER'S SCOLIOTIC BACK. i'm at peace with my scoliosis.
By Liz
on June 9, 2009 12:02 PM
another awesome thing about Beastie Boys that isn't actually related to anything important...Ad Rock is married to Kathleen Hanna. 2 awesome people comign together....oh it makes me feel all fuzzy inside.
By Alex on June 9, 2009 1:28 PM